‘Literally Figurative’ offers odd insight on the human figure

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, May 25, 2009

Juliellen Byrne’s “You’re Pretty Too,” a work of ceramic to be displayed in the exhibit “Literally Figurative.”

Juliellen Byrne’s “You’re Pretty Too,” a work of ceramic to be displayed in the exhibit “Literally Figurative.”

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‘Literally Figurative’ offers odd insight on the human figure

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Her mother’s stink pot was a scrap-filled compost pail, but to Susan Shie it possessed witchy magic. The compost bucket symbolized death and regeneration. It appears prominently in her art.

So does her mother. Representing decay and rebirth, mama is rendered as a kerchief wearing voodoo queen dancing with a snake. The figure’s tarot card stance and heart chakra evil eye markings affirm goddess powers. Botanical motifs link her to nature. Mama is the “Kitchen Tarot” death card priestess.

Tarot, voodoo, death - all on a quilt! Susan Shie is a fabric artist. Her work “Compost Pot/Death” is a large colorful airbrushed, painted, and text inscribed machine-quilted cotton cloth. It is densely constructed with figurative death theme alliterations and surrounding text centered metaphysical uttering. “Compost Pot” is one of 46 artworks in the exhibition “Literally Figurative,” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through July 3.

A few fancy-pants aficionados might roll their eyes at craft, but most accept masterful woodworking, ceramic, glass, metal and fabric art as fine art. There are commercial and art critical reasons to do so.

Shie’s meditation on death references deceased Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. Katrina victims are memorialized. The artist’s cat Willy is featured with his sidekick, a skeletal kitty corpse who dances with Kitchen Tarot mama. Grandma Palazzi also died. But they all still exist.

“I believe in reincarnation,” said Shie. “Our souls are recycled into new bodies, the way leftovers are recycled into earth, from which new food grows. So it all works for me, composting a soul conceptually, purifying it and its returning as new material to have experiences through.”

Epigrammatic scribbling fills a great deal of the composition. Discourse shifts from diaristic murmurings, “Willy’s heart was weak,” to spiritual directives, “see the goddess in all of life, in all people, especially enemies.” Shie’s philosophy is overwhelmingly hippiedom era “peace, love and art.” “Peace voodoo,” she says.

Shie’s cloth art death theme metaphors are visually tranquil compared to Juliellen Byrne’s nightmarish ceramic figures. Byrne shapes clay coils into hilarious and grotesque kiln glazed figurative allusions to our collective decay. “Rabbit King” is a two figure grouping of a predatory rabbit and a fool. Rabbit gawks lewdly and snarls with its lip raised sideways like a dog. Its scale, beer gut, and oversized penis are absurd. “You’re Pretty Too” is a pock-skinned infant with an obese torso, deformed genitalia and knee warts. Byrne intends psychological discomfort. “It is a sinister world we live in,” she said.